The FIFA World Cup: Two Sides of the Same Pitch

In big news everywhere besides the United States, the FIFA World Cup wrapped up in spectacular fashion yesterday when Argentina defeated France on penalty kicks after 120 minutes of gripping play. GOAT candidate Lionel Messi scored a goal on the way to his first championship win, and French star Kylian Mbappé pulled off a historic hat trick that kept the match close down to the wire. It was a fitting finale for the World Cup, which had exciting moments throughout. Watching many of these matches from Latin America, alongside Costa Ricans and tourists from Europe and South America, I felt the energy that gave me a newfound appreciation for the tournament that I had only felt for the Olympics previously. Of course, there are well-publicized problems surrounding the event; most importantly, the conditions faced by the migrant workers who built the stadiums in Qatar were a human rights atrocity, as they were contractually forced to toil in extreme heat with the unknown human cost of hundreds or thousands of lives. It’s painful to think that FIFA could’ve directly avoided these casualties but instead chose to profit immensely from the bribes of unsavory authoritarian regimes. And it’s not great that some viewers have been turned off of their own country’s teams because their colors/flags/imagery have been coopted by authoritarian political movements, exposing some tensions on the world stage.

But, in watching several matches over the last few weeks, I saw a lot more camaraderie than rivalry within the field of play. I recall watching my American team playing against Iran: even though threats were made against the families of some Iranian players if they lost, all I saw on the field were players from both sides helping each other up after exaggerated falls and cordially congratulating one another after the final whistle. Fans from countries around the world intermingled with one another, both in Qatar and watching from TV sets around the world. Some unlikely partnerships emerge where one might expect animosity; for example, all of Central and South America were pulling for Argentina in the final 3 games due to a shared cultural understanding, with no one cheering louder than the Chileans we befriended during our trip. I appreciate that the World Cup is an opportunity to learn about different cultures and recognize sporting excellence…if there’s an answer for world peace, it’s in uniting through a common game, a game that naturally inspires dialogue, exchange, and eventually friendship.

Why I’m a feminist: Part 4

Because I am inspired when women stand up and fight against oppression.

Two recent news stories come to mind. First, Iran is experiencing a women-led uprising against their theocratic Morality Police, sparked when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed during a detainment for wearing a hijab that was ‘too loose.’ Provocative images circulate of young women ripping off their headscarfs then being broken up by police, inspiring widespread sympathy and awareness of the often-violent subjugation of women in Iran. What started as isolated protests have since coalesced into a serious movement that now seeks to topple the Ayatollah’s theocratic regime. When a few of my Muslim friends in college stopped wearing their hijabs, I had no conception of the courage that it took them to defy cultural norms, facing disappointment from family and outright rejection from members of their communities. And I certainly didn’t understand the complicated relationship between hijabs, Islamophobia, and gender discrimination – it makes what’s happening in Iran now truly monumental.

Second, some terrible news from Afghanistan as around 50 teenage girls were tragically killed in the suicide bombing of a Hazara-minority learning center in Kabul. One 16-year-old girl named Marzia kept a detailed diary since the Taliban took over last summer, chronicling her sheer determination to hold onto her dreams, including continuing her architecture education within a regime that forbids women and girls from schools after 8th grade. Like Anne Frank’s diary translated to the modern day, her clarity of thought is motivating an impassioned movement of young women. It’s another battle in a long fight for education rights against the Taliban, spearheaded by the inspirational Malala Yousafzai and carried on by thousands of dedicated women through adverse political conditions across the Middle East.

I have a deep admiration for women who stand up for their self-determination, even in the West where gender discrimination is less often a matter of life or death but still certainly exists. Women who fight for respect in male-dominated workplaces, often putting their career in front of marriage or childbirth to the dismay of relatives and the broader society. Women who disproportionally face sexual harassment and bravely call it out. Women who fight for all women to have access to safe reproductive care, whether they have experienced the trauma of an abortion or an ectopic pregnancy, or not, or even if they are pro-life themselves. Women who endured years of domestic violence (and a legal system that is often unfavorable to DV victims) yet still advocate for other women in active domestic violence situations. Women who still suffer at the hands of men yet persevere. Feminism to me means being actively aware of gender inequities within our circles (and beyond), and supporting efforts to change our systems for the better. So I am an ally, rooting for societal changes that benefit women here and around the world.

Pass the Pork, Please

I can remember a time, somewhere around the mid-2000s, when the political discussion about the U.S. government’s legislative process centered around spending that was deemed superfluous. Earmarks added to bills. Pork barrel* projects, fat that needed trimming. Democrats and Republicans traded barbs about how egregious and unnecessary certain multimillion-dollar projects were, from the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere to the Boston Big Dig. The dangling of projects as political favors got so out of hand that when the Tea Party Movement rose to power buoyed by a platform of government austerity, the practice was completely banned in 2010. Fast forward to the present, seemingly permanent gridlock that followed, and I feel a longing for the simpler times when politicians could be persuaded with a little extra funding to projects in their districts.  Unless a supermajority exists to push through popular agenda items like tax cuts and COVID stimulus, we end up with heavily kneecapped versions of healthcare reform, infrastructure, and a pile of other bills that don’t even meet the threshold for Senate debate.  

One bill recently caught my attention for its tasty, pork-like quality: a bipartisan bill called the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act aimed at funding scientific agencies and grant programs. At a time when the importance of science is often overlooked or even excoriated, this bill will allocate $52B to the semiconductor industry (with an additional $24B in tax credits to stimulate investment in production capacity) and tag about $100B for distribution by the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. The tradeoff in the bill, to gain support from some small-state Republicans, is the inclusion of language that directly demands that NSF and DoE funding be distributed to under-resourced states and municipalities. The bill’s ‘rider’ provisions stayed true to the mission to boost competitiveness in tech manufacturing sectors, and it makes sense to have all hands on deck.

Considering the fractious moment in American politics and international relations, I’m happy that pork-filled negotiations may be making a comeback. I was firmly against this form of spending a decade ago, but if it’s the only way for our representatives from both political parties to find common ground, I’m 100% on board with it. I don’t care if some of the money goes to an underequipped lab that fails to make a single advance, especially if there’s a chance that a successful enterprise spins up in a place like North Dakota or South Carolina. I would encourage similar approaches to a compromise on bills to address veterans exposed to burn pits, energy policy to lessen climate change, the high cost of prescription drugs, and more. These bills might carry some waste or inefficiency, but the cost of doing nothing can be far, far greater.

*Footnote: Interestingly, like many other political buzzwords, the term “pork barrel” hearkens from the era of slavery. As early as 1700, salted pork preserved in barrels was handed out to placate slaves, a cheap motivation tool for suppressing the desire to revolt. It is slightly ironic that Tea Party conservatives rejuvenated this term as part of their campaign against the Obama-era Democratic leadership, likening their moderate tax-and-spend increases to enslavement.

Unsettling Law

Last week, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade, removing the federal protection for the right to an abortion after nearly 50 years. The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization scrapped the precedent completely, effective immediately, allowing states to criminalize or otherwise restrict abortions without needing to consider fetal viability. And restrict they did, with several states enacting “trigger laws” that came into effect as soon as the decision was released. It was such a sudden seismic shift that many women seeking abortions were sent home the same day as all clinics closed in certain states, for fear of legal repercussions. Even in cases of rape or incest, or sometimes as a treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, there is no longer a legal guarantee that a ‘life-saving procedure’ will be protected everywhere. A culture of fear has taken over: fear of prosecution for performing an abortion, having an abortion, or seeking abortion-inducing medication. Fear of being suspected of ‘obtaining, aiding or abetting’ an abortion by someone going for a bounty. Fear of period-tracking app data or bank transactions being used to incriminate. Fear of needing a lifesaving abortion but being unable to access it, or of losing family planning services generally. Fear of being legally required to continue an unwanted pregnancy, whether conceived through rape/abuse or through an accident that would alter the entire trajectory of a young woman’s life. Unborn babies will be saved, sure, but with a spate of unintended consequences for women and society.

While I think the moral issue of abortion is worthy of enlightened democratic debate, I am shocked by the speed and heavy-handedness of the recent Court decision. Five justices, appointed not elected, were able to revoke a freedom (arguably the most significant instance of this since the 18th amendment jumpstarted Prohibition in 1919) on the spot, against the will of a majority of Americans according to polls. I would be more understanding if the Court took a narrow approach, like Chief Justice Roberts suggested, to allow the Mississippi law to impose a 15-week restriction on abortions and reconsider what stage of fetal development constitutes a ‘viable’ person with rights. Instead, the Alito draft and subsequent decision tore up, threw out, and lit on fire two generations of precedent in Roe and Casey. It’s a major victory for the conservative anti-abortion movement, which has been grooming the judiciary for many years to impose legal barriers on liberal policies at the federal level rather than entertain discussions on a policy compromise as you would in a democracy.

The tables have been flipped, upending years of settled law and clearing the space for more judicial activism. In the chaos that followed the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court decided several other important cases, including one that broadly limits states from restricting the right to carry a gun in public. If Justice Thomas’s recent statements are to be believed, protections for gay marriage, access to contraception, Title IX and the equal rights amendment may be challenged in the high court soon. The unilateral decision-making, based on re-interpreting old text and often untethered from real world consequences, really concerns me. It’s not just the Supreme Court: the legislative and executive branches have leaned on unilateral power grabs in recent years to push their own agendas, as have corporate leaders. We are beginning to face the consequences of aborting our democratic values; in my view, that is the abortion we should be trying hardest to prevent.

A Second Look at Sandy Hook

Yesterday, a familiar tragedy struck a familiar place, as a disturbed 18-year-old kid brutally and senselessly gunned down 19 elementary students, 2 teachers, and his own grandmother in Uvalde, Texas. It’s the exact same story as Sandy Hook nearly 10 years later: similar perpetrator, similar weapon, both attacked a family member before massacring a similar elementary class of victims, neither survived to face justice for the incalculable harm they inflicted. Since I grew up after Columbine, Sandy Hook was the mass shooting that burned into my brain the gruesome, twisted, heartbreaking reality of gun violence in this country. This was just as bad as what happened in Sandy Hook, plus a diabolical deja vu that another town is broken, more families ripped apart. Adding insult to injury, the debate around guns has become even more toxic since Sandy Hook, making any chance at addressing the underlying causes (even the mental health ones) seem increasingly out of reach. Texas’s elected leaders put on performative press conferences to express condolences, but Gov. Abbott and Sen. Cruz will turn around and deliver keynote speeches at the NRA convention in Houston this Friday. The whole situation just feels hopeless, tragic, and empty to me – I can’t imagine what the parents of these elementary children (or any American children, for that matter) are going through right now.

What can actually be done to stop tragedies like this before they occur? Well, the easy first step is sitting in a file cabinet outside the Senate – passing H.R.8 (known as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act) would establish more stringent oversight on firearm transfers, closing the gun show loophole and fortifying the moderately successful Brady Bill to a more universal background check. There might be a move at the presidential level, like President Obama’s flurry of departmental actions strengthening mental healthcare and state enforcement. Heck, declare war on gun violence or public terrorism and the president might have a free 90 days to try something, anything to address even a part of this issue. However, it feels more unlikely that any meaningful change can happen now than in the aftermath of Sandy Hook; we seem to have since resigned to the notion that this problem cannot be solved in this political climate. I find it overly cynical to believe that no policy initiatives will work here – Australia and New Zealand have many cultural and historical similarities to the United States, but each country responded swiftly to their mass shootings with gun control initiatives (automatic weapons buybacks, more extensive background checks, permitting, etc.) that appear to have almost completely eradicated the problem. Even if in America, to avoid being too optimistic, a policy only prevents a fraction of all school shootings, we can save the lives of hundreds of children while assuring millions of others that we are at least trying to keep them safe. To me, that is far more defensible than doing nothing.

Unfortunately, we are on track to do nothing. Even though 554 people, mostly children, have been victims of school shootings since Columbine. Not including the number killed in mass shootings at churches and stores and nightclubs and concerts. Or other gun violence incidences that don’t meet the minimum of four victims to be considered a mass shooting. Or close calls that can leave bystanders with long-lasting PTSD. “Thoughts and prayers” are woefully insufficient, and if you think that they are enough, I encourage you to think and pray about the schools listed below, one by one. Each of these is a community that was devastated by gun violence, and the list will only get longer unless we start taking serious action:

Thurston High School.

Columbine High School. 

Heritage High School. 

Deming Middle School. 

Fort Gibson Middle School. 

Buell Elementary School. 

Lake Worth Middle School. 

University of Arkansas. 

Junipero Serra High School. 

Santana High School. 

Bishop Neumann High School. 

Pacific Lutheran University. 

Granite Hills High School. 

Lew Wallace High School. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. High School. 

Appalachian School of Law. 

Washington High School. 

Conception Abbey. 

Benjamin Tasker Middle School. 

University of Arizona. 

Lincoln High School. 

John McDonogh High School. 

Red Lion Area Junior High School. 

Case Western Reserve University. 

Rocori High School. 

Ballou High School. 

Randallstown High School. 

Bowen High School. 

Red Lake Senior High School. 

Harlan Community Academy High School. 

Campbell County High School. 

Milwee Middle School. 

Roseburg High School. 

Pine Middle School. 

Essex Elementary School. 

Duquesne University. 

Platte Canyon High School. 

Weston High School. 

West Nickel Mines School. 

Joplin Memorial Middle School. 

Henry Foss High School. 

Compton Centennial High School. 

Virginia Tech. 

Success Tech Academy. 

Miami Carol City Senior High School. 

Hamilton High School. 

Louisiana Technical College. 

Mitchell High School. 

E.O. Green Junior High School. 

Northern Illinois University. 

Lakota Middle School. 

Knoxville Central High School. 

Willoughby South High School. 

Henry Ford High School. 

University of Central Arkansas. 

Dillard High School. 

Dunbar High School. 

Hampton University. 

Harvard College. 

Larose-Cut Off Middle School. 

International Studies Academy. 

Skyline College. 

Discovery Middle School. 

University of Alabama. 

DeKalb School. 

Deer Creek Middle School. 

Ohio State University. 

Mumford High School. 

University of Texas. 

Kelly Elementary School. 

Marinette High School. 

Aurora Central High School. 

Millard South High School. 

Martinsville West Middle School. 

Worthing High School. 

Millard South High School.

Highlands Intermediate School. 

Cape Fear High School. 

Chardon High School. 

Episcopal School of Jacksonville. 

Oikos University. 

Hamilton High School. 

Perry Hall School. 

Normal Community High School. 

University of South Alabama. 

Banner Academy South. 

University of Southern California. 

Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

Apostolic Revival Center Christian School. 

Taft Union High School. 

Osborn High School. 

Stevens Institute of Business and Arts. 

Hazard Community and Technical College. 

Chicago State University. 

Lone Star College-North. 

Cesar Chavez High School. 

Price Middle School. 

University of Central Florida. 

New River Community College. 

Grambling State University. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School. 

Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy. 

North Panola High School. 

Carver High School. 

Agape Christian Academy. 

Sparks Middle School. 

North Carolina A&T State University. 

Stephenson High School. 

Brashear High School. 

West Orange High School. 

Arapahoe High School. 

Edison High School. 

Liberty Technology Magnet High School. 

Hillhouse High School. 

Berrendo Middle School. 

Purdue University. 

South Carolina State University. 

Los Angeles Valley College. 

Charles F. Brush High School. 

University of Southern California. 

Georgia Regents University. 

Academy of Knowledge Preschool. 

Benjamin Banneker High School. 

D. H. Conley High School. 

East English Village Preparatory Academy. 

Paine College. 

Georgia Gwinnett College. 

John F. Kennedy High School. 

Seattle Pacific University. 

Reynolds High School. 

Indiana State University. 

Albemarle High School. 

Fern Creek Traditional High School. 

Langston Hughes High School. 

Marysville Pilchuck High School. 

Florida State University. 

Miami Carol City High School. 

Rogers State University. 

Rosemary Anderson High School. 

Wisconsin Lutheran High School. 

Frederick High School. 

Tenaya Middle School. 

Bethune-Cookman University. 

Pershing Elementary School. 

Wayne Community College. 

J.B. Martin Middle School. 

Southwestern Classical Academy. 

Savannah State University. 

Harrisburg High School. 

Umpqua Community College. 

Northern Arizona University. 

Texas Southern University. 

Tennessee State University. 

Winston-Salem State University. 

Mojave High School. 

Lawrence Central High School. 

Franklin High School. 

Muskegon Heights High School. 

Independence High School. 

Madison High School. 

Antigo High School. 

University of California-Los Angeles. 

Jeremiah Burke High School. 

Alpine High School. 

Townville Elementary School. 

Vigor High School. 

Linden McKinley STEM Academy. 

June Jordan High School for Equity. 

Union Middle School. 

Mueller Park Junior High School. 

West Liberty-Salem High School. 

University of Washington. 

King City High School. 

North Park Elementary School. 

North Lake College. 

Freeman High School. 

Mattoon High School. 

Rancho Tehama Elementary School. 

Aztec High School. 

Wake Forest University. 

Italy High School. 

NET Charter High School. 

Marshall County High School. 

Sal Castro Middle School. 

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Great Mills High School

Central Michigan University

Huffman High School

Frederick Douglass High School

Forest High School

Highland High School

Dixon High School

Santa Fe High School

Noblesville West Middle School

University of North Carolina Charlotte

STEM School Highlands Ranch

Edgewood High School

Palm Beach Central High School

Providence Career & Technical Academy

Fairley High School (school bus)

Canyon Springs High School

Dennis Intermediate School

Florida International University 

Central Elementary School

Cascade Middle School

Davidson High School

Prairie View A & M University 

Altascocita High School

Central Academy of Excellence

Cleveland High School

Robert E. Lee High School

Cheyenne South High School

Grambling State University

Blountsville Elementary School

Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)

Prescott High School

College of the Mainland

Wynbrooke Elementary School

UNC Charlotte

Riverview Florida (school bus)

Second Chance High School

Carman-Ainsworth High School

Williwaw Elementary School

Monroe Clark Middle School

Central Catholic High School

Jeanette High School

Eastern Hills High School

DeAnza High School

Ridgway High School

Reginald F. Lewis High School

Saugus High School

Pleasantville High School

Waukesha South High School

Oshkosh High School

Catholic Academy of New Haven

Bellaire High School

North Crowley High School

McAuliffe Elementary School 

South Oak Cliff High School

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Sonora High School

Western Illinois University

Oxford High School

Robb Elementary School

The Eyes of Texas

Texas is at the center of several controversies right now. The second special legislative session just adjourned, passing a barrage of new state laws that have ignited a frenzy of speculation and panic among opponents. A complete ban on abortion beyond 6 weeks, the most restrictive and punitive such law in any state. A new voting bill that further curbs mail-in voting and institutes criminal penalties against many forms of voter assistance. A public camping ban aimed at banishing the homeless from visible locations in Austin but enforceable across the entire state. A Star-Spangled Banner Protection Act to force professional sports teams (read: the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban) to play the national anthem before every home game. Over 600 laws were enacted, which seems like an absolutely gigantic number for a state that prides itself on freedom from government interference.

To frame this paradox in the proper context, I want to discuss another controversy that has been simmering for quite some time, likely to boil up again this fall with another football season. The University of Texas alma mater song, “The Eyes of Texas”, has sparked an impassioned debate extending beyond the campus about its alleged racist origins. When a few Longhorn football players refused to participate in the postgame singalong, UT alumni flooded the university with complaints, including some threats from powerful alumni that protesters would be denied employment post-graduation and that donor support for the university would be revoked. This led the university to appoint a “history committee” to investigate the song’s origins, chronicle its institutional usage, and “recommend…strategies to memorialize the history” of the song. With a hint of pro-university bias, the committee concluded that “Eyes” has no racist inspiration or intent, but I think that the song itself tells a different story. Sung to the tune of “I’ve been working on the railroad,” here are the lyrics in question:

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

All the livelong day.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,

You cannot get away.

Do not think you can escape them

At night or early in the morn.

The Eyes of Texas are upon you

‘Til Gabriel blows his horn.

Racist intent or not, it reads as a very creepy tune – mysterious Eyes that are inescapable until you die?! Kind of an odd and foreboding thing to sing about casually at a sporting event, if you know nothing of the tradition. The song originally debuted at a minstrel show in 1895, but that doesn’t necessarily require that its literary purpose was tied to the off-color history of minstrel shows. However, it’s worth noting that that was an era in which lynching was tragically common, and I can understand why a person of color would find the lyrics off-putting, even in the present day. Just this year, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) dropped the following quote in a congressional hearing about anti-Asian racism: “There’s old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree. You know, we take justice very seriously, and we ought to do that.” Many town squares feature a hanging tree or whipping tree memorialized with a bronze historical marker, often right next to the large stone courthouse that occupies the focal point of the quintessential Texas town center. These are highly visible symbols of vigilantist enforcement of the law, which affects all people equally on paper but you just know that the Eyes of Texas were watching non-white residents more closely during that segregated era.

This vigilante legacy lives on in 2021, as deputized citizens are a key enforcement tool for a few of these new laws. The new abortion ban is accompanied by a $10,000 reward for private citizens who successfully sue anyone who undergoes or “aids and abets” an abortion. The new voting law grants “free movement” to partisan poll watchers and makes it a punishable offense to remove these poll watchers unless they go so far as to provably violate the state penal code. While it can be difficult to predict the ultimate ramifications of a new rule, these changes could foreseeably open the door for state-sanctioned intimidation. This is a state that already has strict voter registration rules and levies stiff penalties for ineligible votes cast. Hervis Rogers of Houston, who was mere months from completing his parole for a 1995 felony burglary, was slapped with a possible 40 year sentence for illegally voting in the 2020 primaries. Crystal Mason of Fort Worth, who cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 election out of an abundance of caution about her probation status, is now serving a 5-year prison sentence even though her provisional vote was never counted. With partisan poll-watching Eyes allowed to hover over check-in tables and election day lines, I can understand how anyone with even a sliver of doubt about their voter registration status could be intimidated or deterred from casting a vote.

Perhaps the song, its history, and the controversial new laws aren’t explicitly racist. However, I would posit that they might carry a sinister racial undertone, considering Texas’s segregated history and vigilante traditions. As a relative newcomer to Texas, I find the state substantially more racist than anywhere I’ve lived in Oklahoma, Missouri, or Tennessee, particularly against African Americans but also against people of Hispanic or Asian descent. I frequently hear the N-word in casual conversation, always spoken in hushed tones as though keeping the conversation secret somehow erases how heartlessly racist the comment was. This silent tolerance for racism is not just present in rural areas, as suburbs have become a flash point for debates about diversity and inclusion against “preserving the tradition” (exhibit A: Southlake Carroll near Dallas-Fort Worth…this story really shocked me before I moved to Texas). Sundown towns are still a problem, horrifyingly, as is unequal policing. My black neighbors are regularly visited by police officers checking on “disturbances,” a black friend was ticketed for speeding 3 mph over the limit (and pulled over two other times in the last couple years), the list goes on discriminately. It may not be a coincidence that Hervis Rogers and Crystal Mason are both black. Texas has a long way to go to feel like an inclusive environment for people of color, and sadly I think these new laws are a major step in the wrong direction.

Olympics Appreciation Post

Rising above the chaos of the world this summer, the Tokyo Olympics have gone off without a hitch, mostly. Leading up to the games, the prospect of hosting this Olympics was widely criticized, maligned, doubted; not least because we’re still in the throes of a global pandemic. It’s an expensive event, with a price tag of around 20 billion dollars, footed by a Japanese population of whom around 80% oppose the games continuing under these conditions. There are no fans in the stands, as the events take place in a relative bubble, limiting cultural exchange as well as tourist economic benefit. There was a fear that the Olympic “bubble” would showcase the opportunity gap for vaccinations between rich and poor countries – though that gap is always present in participation. Recent scandals, including the Russian doping penalties and the U.S. Gymnastics/Larry Nassar sexual assault case, cast a lingering shadow on the sports that they affect. World politics seem to be growing more nationalistic, distrusting, negative. Perhaps that’s why we need the Olympics more than ever now: it’s a show of positivity, strength, and togetherness in the face of lockdowns, hardship, and divisiveness.

I love the Olympics for the moments of greatness, perseverance, and world unity. And there has been no shortage of spectacular moments through the first week plus. Two thousand glowing drones forming into a mesmerizing globe during the opening ceremony. Hidilyn Diaz lifting concrete blocks and water jugs on the way to winning the first ever gold medal for the Philippines. Pure joyous surprise for Kristian Blummenfelt as he won a wild men’s triathlon by a wide margin. A spectacular all-around performance for Hmong-American gymnast Suni Lee. Sifan Hassan falling to the track with a lap to go then coming back to win her heat in the 1500-meter run. Caeleb Dressel crying wordless tears of joy over a videocall with his wife and mother after winning his first of several gold medals in swimming. A world record triple jump by nearly seven inches for Yulimar Rojas. A shared gold medal in men’s high jump. An incredible world record in the 400-meter hurdles for Karsten Warholm. Many of these stellar achievements were followed by emotional celebrations, with competitors from different countries embracing and cheering for one another. It’s a reminder that despite differences in politics, race, nationality, and lived experience, we are united by humanity. For that reason alone, I believe it’s worth investing in the continuation of the Olympic tradition for years to come!

A Long Overdue Memorial Day

One of the most terrible tragedies of the Jim Crow era occurred 100 years ago tonight in my home state. The Tulsa Race Massacre was so terrible that there was a prolonged effort to bury its memory: the carnage was immediately rebranded as a “riot,” an estimated 10,000 black residents lost their homes and livelihoods with no compensation whatsoever, mass graves were concealed, a death toll was never recorded, and the city of Tulsa refused to formally acknowledge the event until 1998. Only then did researchers and community activists begin to piece together the true story of what happened, and in the context of our current racial reckoning, that story is finally being told in detail across many news outlets and documentaries. 107-year-old survivor Viola Fletcher gave a moving testimony to Congress, and though it’s several decades too late, the nationwide attention has been a cathartic experience for many communities who feel the weight of racial injustice that lingers today.

However, this spotlight is not without its detractors: earlier this month, governors of Oklahoma and Texas signed legislation aimed to ban critical race theory from being taught in schools. Aside from creating a culture of fear in classrooms, the measures are backward and historically wrongheaded – I say this from experience as an alumnus of Oklahoma public schools during the 2000s. My 9th grade Oklahoma history class didn’t explicitly discuss what happened in Tulsa in 1921; rather, I first heard of the incident from the required reading, a 1994 textbook that referred to it as the “Tulsa Race Riot” and focused on the inciting incident to cast blame on both sides. With similar attention to “both sides,” my 11th grade U.S. history course featured a mock debate between northern abolitionists and pro-slavery southerners, in which half the class was instructed to defend the economic benefits and states’ rights arguments of the southern states leading up to the Civil War. The verbiage of the Oklahoma bill forbids topics that evoke “discomfort, guilt or distress on account of their race or sex,” but I can imagine an African American student in that classroom environment feeling very discomforted and distressed.

In my eyes, intentionally smoothing over history is far more dangerous than introducing uncomfortable topics to children. It was a travesty that the trajectory of America’s racial history was presented to me as ‘slavery was bad, the Civil War fixed it, lingering racism led to segregation, then the civil rights movement solved everything.’ The massacre in Tulsa was, of course, part of a larger white supremacist movement post-Reconstruction; there were a number of devastating attacks on African American communities in Wilmington NC, Springfield IL, Elaine AR, and other places both north and south. Heinous acts of domestic terrorism carried out with the complicity of state and local governments who did not protect even the most basic rights of black citizens. I hope that these suppressed histories continue to be told, conservative sensibilities be damned. Viola Fletcher doesn’t want to “leave this world without justice,” which beyond telling the story of Black Wall Street in Tulsa would require a societal acknowledgement of the complete legacy of Jim Crow. That recognition is long overdue. *

Ruins of Greenwood District after the infamous Tulsa Race Massacre, American National Red Cross Photograph Collection, June 1921

–

* The closest we got to such a recognition was perhaps in 1968, when the Kerner Report advised the Johnson administration that the United States was moving toward a segregated, unequal system wherein black ghettoes were plagued by generational poverty and unfair disadvantages in employment, home ownership, policing, infrastructure, and education, to name a few. The Nixon administration went in a different direction, and we’re still contending with the same problems 50 years later.

Vaccine Freedom

After getting my second dose of the Moderna vaccine a few days ago, I felt an instant surge of 5G course through my veins – that is, if the G stands for gratitude. For all practical purposes, I should have been one of the last to receive the vaccine: I’m a young bachelor who works with a small number of young-to-middle-aged men in a somewhat socially-distanced setting, and I already caught the virus in September. My vaccine opportunity was made possible in part by the vaccine hesitancy of my neighbors, as the local pharmacy could not fill all of its available appointments. It was completely free and as easy as a phone call and an hour in a supermarket pharmacy. Two shots and a only a dull headache later, I am fully vaccinated against all known variants of the coronavirus.

In truth, this opportunity was made possible by the federal government’s aggressive vaccine rollout. For a down payment of about $9 billion (most of which went into Moderna’s mRNA-based vaccine), the U.S. government secured first access to hundreds of millions of doses, enough for all residents to be vaccinated at no cost. India is suffering a devastating runaway outbreak, only receiving leftover vaccine doses that were unclaimed by countries rich enough to prepay. Likewise, Brazil’s struggle to contain their COVID-19 variant, which has a much higher mortality rate in children, is hampered by a lack of vaccines available. Ethically, high-risk people in these countries deserve to be vaccinated well before me, but there’s no system presently in place to redistribute doses. I accepted the vaccine when it was my turn, acknowledging my extreme privilege living in a wealthy nation.

Yet only 31% of Texans have been fully vaccinated, lagging slightly behind the national average of 36%. And vaccination rates are slowing, a sign that many Americans are not making arrangements to get vaccinated. A surge in weekend, drive-through vaccination events should help, along with incentives ranging from free Uber/Lyft rides to free beer. But this doesn’t move the needle with the quarter of Americans who say they refuse to be vaccinated, no pun intended. Even though we live in the most well-resourced country in the world, where over 100 million people were already vaccinated in the largest free clinical trial, with a plethora of public media resources explaining the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness, a significant fraction of the population will exercise their ‘freedom’ and likely decline the free ticket out of this pandemic.

For the life of me, I don’t understand it.

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For an interesting dive into the history of vaccine production/distribution and how it foments some of the vaccine inequity today, I recommend this piece from NPR.

COVID in Texas

On this monumental week in the fight against COVID-19, exactly one year after the NBA suddenly shut down and the WHO upgraded the coronavirus to a pandemic globally, I want to take the time to chronicle my experience with the state’s lackadaisical, laissez-faire sociopolitical response to the ongoing crisis. I initially drove down in June, just three weeks before the statewide mask mandate was issued by Gov. Abbott, when there was minimal awareness and preparation in rural west Texas. Which means that, officially, I endured the complete duration of the epidemic, as the mask mandate formally ended this Wednesday to fully reopen the state. While it’s hard to break the pandemic into well-defined first, second, and third waves, there was a noticeable evolution of attitudes from confusion to situational empathy to stubborn resistance.

Phase 1: Unlimited Social Gatherings

Beginning with almost no masks or distancing, the prevailing sentiment outside of the major cities was that “if the virus comes, it comes…but it’s not here yet, so I’m going to keep living my life.” Even when the Governor instituted the conditional mask mandate on June 22nd, people continued with their summertime social schedules. Hill country destination Fredericksburg was packed with tourists each time I passed through. Fourth of July parties, boat parades, unpublicized club events – many Texans never scaled back their social interactions despite the ever-increasing risks of transmission. There’s a work-hard-play-hard aspect to Texas culture, and weekend festivities just had to go on.

The coronavirus still carried an air of mystery for most, but the Texas business elites in my orbit had a wildly different experience. While I was denied a COVID test out in rural Junction, my well-connected acquaintances had been tested several times each. They were still jetsetting across the state to attend meetings and parties as usual, in stark contrast to the lockdowns in other parts of the country. A few young adults in this cohort had tested positive, and they railed against the newly imposed shutdowns and mask mandates because their symptoms were mild (if they had any at all).

Phase 2: Viral Recognition

Around mid-July, case counts skyrocketed all over the state. Shocking images of mobile morgues in El Paso and makeshift ICUs in Houston influenced the public conversation about wearing masks and social distancing – 4 months in, and the severity of the pandemic finally felt intimately real. There was almost universal compliance with the mask mandate, most without complaint. A large segment of the population always felt that their personal freedoms were being violated, but the social pressure to wear a mask seemed to temporarily suspend their outrage. I went on a socially-distanced date with a cute epidemiologist who worked as a contact tracer: the majority of her calls were met with deliberate unhelpfulness or hostility, despite the circumstances, which I found self-centered and disheartening.

Perhaps it was unavoidable between working and relocating, but I contracted COVID in September. It sucked, the worst being a prolonged shortness of breath and muscle fatigue dogging me for 10 days. I was able to work from home, mostly, though my brain was foggy and tired. Fortunately, tests were more widely available in Hallettsville at that time, and as far as I know I wasn’t a vector.

Phase 3: What are we doing?

After testing negative two weeks later, I became more attuned to high-risk behaviors upon returning to my work routine. I went out to eat with a colleague, and I was absolutely floored that 100 people, many of them over 60 and almost all of them unmasked, would cram into a single ~1500 square foot room. I met up with some nurse friends, two of whom had also survived COVID, and they were deeply frustrated by the brazen behavior that landed so many people in their critical care. The whole situation seemed self-defeating, like we were left at the mercy of other people’s careless actions regardless of our own precautions.

The virus continued to spread through Hallettsville. The entire JV football squad tested positive one week, then the cheerleading squad all came down with COVID the next. Eventually, two of my coworkers experienced symptoms and tested positive, once the virus had spread from children to parents to other members of the community. School and work could not stop, however; the predominant attitude has shifted toward to “the virus is not dangerous for the young and healthy, and the vulnerable should self-quarantine.”

Phase 4: End the Tyranny

The local elections were a much bigger deal here than state or national elections this past November. The newly elected sheriff and judge ran on a shared platform of “ending the tyranny” of mask enforcement, and they rode a wave of people’s frustrations with the pandemic-related restrictions to victory. While the mask mandate remained statewide, most people here only wear their mask as a prop upon entering businesses, if at all. I witnessed a couple of verbal altercations in public places between masked patrons and anti-maskers, as the newfound freedom begat a different form of tyranny. Masks became symbolic instead of an essential prevention strategy, and habits further relaxed…just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At some point after New Year’s, the case count began to drop off, possibly because it seems like most people have already had COVID. But it’s still going around: my barber just recovered from the virus last week.

Phase 5 and beyond: Victory, Defeat, or Something in Between

Now that the mask mandate is lifted, I expect an uptick in COVID cases though perhaps not a spike. If you consider rural Texas as a testbed for completely hands-off policy, there wasn’t a major difference in transmission between ‘tyranny’ and ‘no tyranny’ because Texans didn’t substantially modify their behavior. While it seems premature to fully open bars and event venues, people are already gathering by the dozens in restaurants and private parties, and I’m tempted to adopt the same defeatist attitude as many others: “What difference does it make?” Of course I wish that masks and social distancing were encouraged for a few more months until most people have the opportunity to get vaccinated, but I am beginning to understand that Texas’s modus operandi will always be “uncontrolled free-for-all.”

While the response to the mask mandate’s repeal has ranged from public revelry to outright panic, I get the sense that Texans across the board are weary. Skeptics of the disease’s severity are weary of the mask-wearing ‘charade.’ Conscientious citizens are weary of conflicts with anti-maskers. High-risk members of society are weary of self-quarantining month after month, many holed up completely because society never really adjusted to accommodate their safety. When a new tragedy struck in the form of freezing cold temperatures and prolonged power outages, COVID paled in comparison to that emergency in both scale and urgency. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camel’s back here – I think I’m now ready to admit that it’s time to reopen for a full economic recovery, even if a majority of people remain unvaccinated. We may not have definitively won or lost the fight against coronavirus, but case numbers are coming down amid a stalemate – one that I expect to continue indefinitely until vaccination is widespread.